It's a trick question, right?

Robert Creamer

What's the difference between mainstream Republican leaders and the Tea Party extremists that have been winning Republican primaries across the country?

Reminds me of this:

Q: What's the difference between pygmies and a women's track team?
A: One's a buncha cunning runts and the other's a buncha running....

Sorry. I guess that doesn't fit very well since Repugs and teabaggers are both, but I can't control what pops into my mind.

The main difference is the willingness of the Tea Party gang to say what they believe out loud. This, of course, is driving Republican political consultants crazy. Republicans have never gotten elected by laying out to the voters the core components of their economic agenda. When they have been successful it has generally been by soft-pedaling or sugar-coating the things that mattered most to their corporate backers and playing instead to the fears and anxieties of their rank and file voters.

Nor, of course, did Bush campaign on the pledge that he would take the long-term surplus in the federal budget he inherited from Clinton and turn it into more debt, during his term, than all of the presidents before him in American history put together.

This year, the Republican establishment is not worried about the primary victories of Tea Party candidates because they will advocate "far out" extremists policies. Most of the Republican Party leadership agrees with those policies. The problem is that these candidates don't seem to have enough sense -- or political experience -- to know that they're not supposed to go around talking about those policies before they're elected.

Good long article, but this sums it up:

[...] Tea Party extremists who haven't learned yet to moderate their language - and earnest true believers like Paul Ryan who think they can convince America that what's bad for them is good for them - have complicated the Republican problem. [...]

The Repugs have been successful in lying and fearmongering to Americans to get them to vote against their own best interests for years decades. The real question now that the economy has people paying more attention and might actually listen to the Repug spew is:

Will it work this time?

{Crickets}